Beyond the semantic representation involved in memory knowledge, the findings of an investigation led by Palma J. Longo, an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (USA), propose a new metacognitive learning theory, the encoding activation theory of the anterior cingulate cortex or ENACT-AC. In the first part of this article, we explained how the use of visual thinking networks improves learning, especially if color is used. This second part focuses on the role of the anterior cingulate cortex in the cognitive processes of information processing, response planning, and decision making.

Madrid, May 14, 2019. As pointed out by Longo, the deeper we elaborate meanings through associations, images, and stories, the more likely we are to remember the information. This is based on the hypothesis that meaning is constructed by nodes assembled according to contextual demands, while color creates additional markers to the nodes, making them more easily retrievable from the working memory. Constructs and associations of the working memory – crucial in decision-making processes – are located in the frontal lobe and are interconnected with the temporal cortices, where verb and word meanings are harbored.

According to the ENACT-AC model, compartmentalized knowledge of color, shape, location, and motion from the visual cortex in the occipital lobe is stored in the frontal lobe. Thus, the scientific literature considers the anterior cingulate to be an executive attention system that helps ensure more efficient processing in other areas of the brain. Directing attention to color activates the primary visual cortex and, in some way, the encoding of knowledge makes knowledge more stable. Color, as knowledge in the brain, is an integral, cross-modal, associative component within neuronal memory networks distributed in the cortex.

These color associations are defined by neural relationships activated in cortical networks during three stages: the perceptual stage, the attention stage (encoding), and the retrieval stage of working memory. Theoretically, in order to solve a problem successfully, the students in Longo's study had to conceptualize the words to represent the problem in working memory. The purpose of this encoding is that conceptual knowledge can be used in a series of steps. Therefore, decisions have to be made regarding what to do next, and it turns out that this process was more elaborate for participants who used the color visual thinking network strategies.

Cognitive architecture

The framework of the ENACT-AC model mentioned by the author relies on five findings from neurocognitive science. The first is that knowledge is distributed anatomically to different regions of the brain. For example, when we see an apple falling from a tree, the information that an object is falling travels from the optic nerve to the lateral geniculate nucleus in the thalamus, which is the primary center for processing information received through the retina. From there, the elements follow two routes: the “what,” which categorizes the external world into attributes of color and form, and the “where,” which refers to spatial relations.

For a long time, it was thought that the nervous system builds an image of the external world by analyzing its components and then assembling them by addition. However, and here is the second finding, hierarchical processing is being replaced by the perspective that the cerebral cortex is a network where multiple processing of visual information is distributed across several cortical areas, including the prefrontal lobes through feedback neural linkages. These connections promote dynamic interaction and led perception and cognition to be considered today as continuous and coextensive processes.

This brings us to the third major contribution of the ENACT-AC model: "the early visual categorizations have a functional role in cognitive processing," according to the American professor. Although the exact mechanisms have not been established yet, it seems that the early visual constructions of color, form, spatial relations, and motion established by someone perceiving an object or event are implicated in the attention and memory systems of the brain, which is why it is crucial that metacognitive learning tools facilitate working memory capacity. In fact, it is known that color and form can be represented separately and accessed independently in long-term memory.

Semantic and iconic representations

As already stated, "visual images are not only semantic or language representations (propositional),” they differ from verbal thoughts, but both can be interrelated through neural linkages. Distributed knowledge gives rise to a new understanding of how our experiences are semantically and iconically represented in the brain," summarizes Longo to complete the fourth and fifth findings of her concept map. Visual thinking is based on topographically organized representations in regions of the primary visual cortex in both hemispheres. What happens is that knowledge retrieval is based on the active reconstruction of distributed knowledge.

“When an individual seeks to recall an experience, all those multiple constructs of color, form, motion, and even the cortex where the nouns and verbs are located (which were used to describe the original events and objects) are reactivated according to what was established during their perception." All these neural sets, the original activity patterns, and the experience are simultaneously recalled as a complete unitary event. This notion of memory reconstruction supports the constructivist basis of the ENACT-AC theory defended by Longo. Thus, visual thinking network strategies encourage students to integrate multiple ways of thinking using the same categorization attributes that our brain perceives from the physical world.

For the achievement of substantial changes in education, the gap between neurocognitive science and classroom practice must be closed. Longo offers two bridges: the creation of visual thinking networking and, attached to that, the ENACT-AC theory. Visual thinking networks enable meaningful color and symbolic visualizations to the scientific concepts, processes, and experiences into a coherent whole. Educationally, the role of the senses becomes a focus with respect to concept formation. According to the author, "what is critical for classroom experiences is to have a diverse number of multimodal learning tasks for the acquisition, representation, and assessment of knowledge.”